THE MARCH 2021 “YES, WE ACTUALLY WENT TO” BEACHES TURKS & CAICOS TRIP REPORT: DAYS 7 AND 8!!

Yes yes. I know.

It has been A MINUTE since my last post about this trip. But don’t worry. I have excuses.

I bet THAT made you feel better. Everyone loves excuses.

Welp, you see…this happened.

Yeah, we got a puppy. Meet Stitch.

I won’t spend too much time on him here because I hope to write a “Meet Stitch” post soon but Stitch is our new Micro-Mini Double Doodle. And as of the writing of this post, he is 9 weeks old and only 3 pounds.

Yeah, dude is small.

And being that he is 9 weeks, you know. He is taking up A LOT of our time. Sleep has been intermittent to say the least.

Though I will say – last night was the first night he actually slept through the night. And he is pretty much housebroken already.

And we have only had him for a week. So it hasn’t taken that long, I suppose. See, this is why people should never.

Ever.

EVER.

Say that raising a puppy is like having a baby. Believe me, that shizz lasts much longer than a week.

So like, never say that.

Also, in case you are wondering, Lilo has started to warm up to him. I wouldn’t say they are BFFs at this point, but she doesn’t always seem annoyed by him. She’s moved onto just trying to pretend he doesn’t exist.

Eh, actually. It’s even better than that. I’ve even noticed Lilo playing with him here and there. But don’t tell her I told you that.

So anyways. I apologize for this post taking so long. But hopefully it was worth the wait.

Because this post? It covers two days.

Yah so remember when you finished reading the last post and were like, “Oh, well I won’t be able to get that time back, like ever”?

Well, multiply that by 2.

Enjoy!

Beaches Turks & Caicos 2021 trip: Day 7!

Day 7 began with Nickie nudging me to wake up for a walk on the beach with her and Larissa. She woke me with a gentle kiss on the cheek and I returned the favor. I then leapt out of bed, propelled by the magic of love, ready to greet the day and taste the sunshi…

…

Heh, just kidding. Nickie woke me up with a punch in the stomach and informed me in a very annoyed tone she was going for a walk on the beach with Larissa and said I could join them if I didn’t have any other friends to hang out with.

…

OK fine. It was neither of those things.

But point is, Nickie got up and I slept a little bit. THAT’S the point.

She and Larissa went for what looks like a nice morning walk on the beach and around some of the resort.

When Nickie returned to the room, Owen and I got up to head out to breakfast with her while Myles wanted to sleep in a little. He did, however, ask for us to bring him back some food. And us being the enabler parents we are, we complied.

Jeff and Sheila were also up so they decided to join us for breakfast as well.

When we walked out our door, we came upon some workers trimming the palm trees outside. And I would say we watched them for like a good 5-10 minutes.

Yeah, 5-10 minutes. Being in the middle of Bachelor/Bachelorette seasons, we take whatever entertainment we can get.

The staff really does an amazing job of landscaping here, though. Like, Disney-level stuff here.

Right though. Breakfast.

Since we hadn’t been there yet this trip, we decided to walk over to the Caribbean Village for breakfast at their buffet restaurant, Reflections.

Just as with Mario’s during this whole pandemic situation, Reflections is a buffet but we weren’t allowed to self-serve. There were staff members available to serve food to guests from the buffet. Which works out. Often, when I visit a buffet, I go up so many times and scoop so much food, I develop what the pros on the buffet circuit call “buffelbow.”

Don’t laugh. It can get pretty serious if they have quiche. That stuff is pretty dense.

And heavy.

Anyways, that picture of the door? That’s the only “ambiance” picture I have of the place. I took zero photos of the inside. On account of I am very talented. At the blogging.

I did, however, get a picture of my plate.

As you can see above, I got an Omelet (Peppers, Mushrooms, Bacon), French Toast, Sausage, Breakfast Potatoes, and a side of Grits.

It was good enough. To be completely honest, I think I preferred the food at Mario’s. The omelet was a little fluffier at Mario’s and I felt like they had more variety at the buffet. I was also going to say they had some nicer syrups at Mario’s (I went with Pineapple when we were there), but I think I just didn’t see these at Reflections. I am pretty sure they still had them. So please don’t start any sort of petition to bring more syrups to Reflections on my behalf.

I am pretty sure they had the syrups is what I am saying. That’s the word, at least. In all of my buffet-focused Facebook groups.

Yeah, I take buffets seriously.

As I mentioned, we told Myles we would grab him something as well. We got him some Pancakes, Bacon, Sausage, and a Chocolate Croissant.

He took his meal on the balcony today. Quite the aristocrat.

But the balcony it was. And you know what that means.

BALCONY SHOT!!!!!!111one one

Being that it was our last full day at Beaches, we wanted to get a little shopping in. We started off in the jewelry store.

I was trying to convince Nickie to pick something out but while she tried on a couple rings, she didn’t find anything she liked. Orrrrr she didn’t want to spend the money. Either way, I get to be husband-of-the-year and not spend anything.

That’s like a win-win.

For me.

So eh, just a win. But for me. So. Still worth mentioning.

But don’t worry, friends. We can still spend some money. Off to the Resort Shop!

This resort shop is the one in the Italian Village.

The boys and I each got a Beaches spirit jersey and the boys also got a couple of hats. And being that she didn’t find any jewelry she wanted in the actual jewelry store, Nickie got a turquoise necklace and some turquoise earrings.

Goodys be shoppin’.

While the rest of us were being selfish doof-balls, the Siggins were making us look bad by doing things for others.

Let me back up a second.

On Turks & Caicos and in the Bahamas, there is a breed of dog called the Potcake. These dogs are technically a mixed-breed, borne out of early visitors to the islands who brought over dogs with them. Three main furry visitors contributed to the development of this breed (according to Wikipedia) – dogs the Arawak brought with them to the Bahamas, terriers protecting supplies from rodents on ships, and dogs that from North Carolina that arrived with loyalists during the Revolutionary War.

So yeah, I feel like if that’s when the “mixing” happened, these dogs are pretty much well-established as their own breed.

Also, the name “Potcake” comes from the pea/rice mixture that would congeal at the bottom of the family pot that people in the Bahamas would feed the dogs. Which is like the cutest way for a dog to get a name.

Annnnyways. There is the place called Potcake Place on the island that sets up Potcake adoptions for families. And the Siggins, being some sort of angel family, offered to bring home a puppy for a family back in Boston. Check out this little dude…

So cute. And little squish’s name? Starsky. I kind of almost dognapped him.

OK so onto the big happenings today.

Prior to the trip, we had booked a private charter with Caicos Catalyst for all of us, including the Siggins who we were just missing terribly. It was to be a wonderful day, visiting other parts of the island, drinking rum, seeing iguanas, drinking rum, jumping off a shipwreck.

Oh, and drinking rum.

The boat was picking us up at a dock about 15 minutes away at 1pm so we arranged for a van to pick all of us up at 12:45 and around 12:00, we stopped in at The Cricketer’s for lunch. I mean, we had 45 minutes. Should be enough time, right?

12:10

12:15

Tick tock, tick tock

12:20 rolled around and we informed our waitress we had a van to catch so we wanted to get our burgers to go.

12:30

12:40

12:45

The van arrives. Our food still hasn’t.

Sheila says she will go and check in with the driver and just tell him we are waiting for some food.

12:47

She reports back that the driver, understandably, is getting a little angry. So I head out as well to try and assess the situation. I talk to the driver and explain how we have been waiting for a while for our food. I apologize profusely and thank him for waiting, assuring him everyone should be along any minute.

12:55

Text notification.

Nickie informs me she heard back from the captain of the boat. The winds are just too high and the water is too choppy. They were waiting for as long as they could, hoping we could get out but it just wasn’t going to work out.

So now, I had the unfortunate task of telling the van driver that, in fact, we were not actually going anywhere. But if I’ve learned anything from being drunk at strip clubs in my early 20’s, the best way to say sorry?

With twenty dollar bills.

I just grabbed whatever amount of 20 dollar bills I had in my wallet, passed them to him, turned on the puppy dog eyes and all of a sudden we were BFFs.

But yeah, a bummer. No boat trip. No Siggins.

No iguanas.

But you know what we did have? We had boxes upon boxes of cheeseburgers. So we grabbed seats by the Italian Village pool bar and drowned our sorrows in ground beef.

And Mai Tai. I drowned my sorrows in Mai Tai.

To change things up, we decided we would do our pooling at the Iguana Pool in the Caribbean Village first today.

As you can see, this pool was empty. As you cannot see, this was because the water temperature was just above “giant ice cube.”

So due to not wanting to have hypothermia or you know…

…

A bad case of….

…I mean, you know. Like, an overly bad case of…

Erm.

Yeah. That.

We decided maybe the Iguana Pool wasn’t in the cards today.

So everyone else headed to the Pirate’s Island waterpark while Nickie and I made our way over to the consistently warmest pool on property – the French Pool.

And man. Look. I am gonna get all schmoopy here. But it was really nice to get a little bit of time for just Nickie and I. We had a couple drinks, swam in the pool, and I don’t know…it’s kind of incredible how after being together for over 20 years, we can still make each other laugh as much as we were laughing in the pool that day.

And the best part about that time we spent together is that by the time everyone else came to join us at the pool, we were in like really good lovey-dovey moods. So it was a win-win for everyone.

And this time, it was truly a win-win.

We hung out at the pool for a bit, talked and had a couple more drinks (obviously) before heading back to the room.

As evidenced by us not being out on the water and drinking rum today, the weather was not great. The wind kept up for most of the day. But we tried to put all that out of our mind and rise above it to try and get our professional pictures today.

I know. We are true heroes.

Our look for our pictures today could be described as, I don’t know…beach formal casual? Not wanting to get dressed up? Random?

Not really sure.

SO not like us. We usually are very matchy-matchy for these pictures but with us having to reschedule and what not, we went a little more cazsh.

I had to look up how to properly spell that, by the way. Cazsh is how you spell the shortened version of “casual.” The Internet is a wondrous place.

We went on down to the dive shop to meet up with our buddy, Romaine, to see what we could get done in terms of pictures. And for what it’s worth, it WAS a rull pretty day.

It was just a little windy. But we pushed through. Again, true heroes.

You ever look at a picture of yourself and think, “whoa, do I really look that old?”

Yeah, me too.

Soon enough, we met up with Romaine.

And he’s great, man. Highly recommend him if you guys do professional pictures down there. He takes great pictures and makes the whole experience really fun. Plus, I mean look at him out there in the water. Dude suffers for his art.

At the end of our session, he took a picture of us with my phone.

But obvs squad the pictures he took with his camera were much better. Buckle in. PICTURE EXPLOSION!!

I think Romaine still managed to get some good shots despite the wind. I mean, the weather can’t keep all of this down.  

So what I am saying is…book Romaine. This was the second trip where he took our pictures and on our next trip, I am sure we will request him again.

You the man, Romaine.

After pictures, it was time to meet back up with the rest of the crew for dinner. We met up at the Italian Village Bar to have a pre-dinner drinky poo. And

We.

Couldn’t.

Stop.

Taking.

Pictures.

Of ourselves.

We were also lucky enough to get another visit with one of our favorite bartenders at the Italian Village bar, Simone She made some good drinks for sure throughout our trip and made our time at the bar (which was A LOT of time) so much fun. I mean, mainly by making fun of us. Which works out.

Since verbal abuse is like spinach for me.

I’m strong to the finish because you made me feel bad.
I’m Wayne-o, the insecure man!
Toot! Toot!

Now, we originally had reservations at Neptune’s tonight so that was the plan for dinner. But, when some members of our party saw their menu online, it seemed like we were gonna have trouble finding something for everyone.

So, when we walked up to check in at Neptune’s, we told them our situation and they were totally understanding. They said most likely there would still be walk-up availability at Bayside. And since we hadn’t had dinner there yet this trip, we decided to give Bayside a go.

And the hostess was correct. We were seated immediately when we walked up.

Hey look. I actually took a picture of the menu! It’s almost like I am a professional blogger. I should join the union. I’ll be a star. I’ll…

Oh wait. It’s blurry.

A few of us started off with an Old-Fashioned. And this was a REALLY good Old-Fashioned, you guys.

Man, if loving bourbon is old-fashioned, just call me the dude who used to do the commercials for Pepperidge Farm.

Yeah. That guy.

For my appetizer, I started with the Sweet Onion & Corn Chowder with plant-based Chorizo.

Look how pretty. And I mean, I don’t mean to be corny, but I really liked it.

A couple of us also split the…

Wait, can we just appreciate that joke there for a second. See, I said “corny” to mean like…cheesy. But also, the chowder was corn. So now do you get it?

Where’d all these crickets come from?

Anyways, a couple of us also split the Tuna & Avocado Tostada.

Very good. The tuna was super-dee-duper fresh.

Nickie also got a very pretty-looking salad.

But I mean, it’s a salad. What do you want me to say about that? Very, erm…leafy.

I mean, come on. I know none of you came here for salad.

For my main, I got the chicken and waffles. Actually, a bunch of us got the chicken and waffles.

And this was REALLY good. Especially that sriracha maple syrup you guys. Maybe actually one of my favorite entrees of the trip. I mean, I feel like I say that a lot. But whatever. My blog, my rules.

Nickie got the Cocoa & Chili Braised Short Ribs.

Of which I (of course) had a bite. And these were also very good. Incredibly tender.

I also snagged a pic of Larissa’s Seafood Paella (Chorizo, Peas, Blue Crab, Squid, Mussels, Clams, Shrimp). This is Bayside’s signature dish. And it’s pretty impressive looking.

Larissa didn’t want her squid so I said I would give it a try.

And um. Nope.

Look, I will eat most anything. But that’s a big old no on the squid. Thankfully, I had bourbon to get the taste out of my mouth. Oh bourbon. Is there anything you CAN’T do?

While we were sitting there, a little girl from another table saw that Mia had brought her Build-A-Bear and came over with her own Build-A-Bear to, I don’t know, discuss stuffing strategies?

Ugh. So cute.

For dessert, we got two of the three options on the menu. The Key Lime Pie (with Meringue, Raspberries, and Chocolate Ganache).

Which was good, don’t get me wrong. This was maybe my favorite Key Lime dessert of the week. But, the other dessert we got – the Tres Leches Cake with Roasted Coconut and Caramel – was up near the top in terms of desserts for the entire trip.

Tres Leches is Spanish. For Three Leches.

Overall, it was a pretty stellar meal at Bayside. Really really good last dinner for the trip.

As with many nights on this trip, post-dinner we went over to The Cricketer’s to shoot some pool.

Well, actually, the pool tables were taken tonight so Myles, Owen, and I tried our hand at Snooker.

And by “tried our hand,” I mean to say “had no idea what we were doing.”

Oh also, in looking through all of the pictures from the trip, a picture from Larissa’s camera also just showed up.

I’m no expert but Larissa may have been drunk. Maybe she thought this was a lizard.

And then, we went to bed.

…

…

Pfft, please. You KNOW we did some karaoke.

And I don’t know if you guys remember or not but I mentioned before we had connected with the McNally family through the Beaches Turks & Caicos Unofficial Facebook Group (Steve, Diane, and Jess) and Steve also happened to be a karaoker. What Microsoft Word? Karaoker is not a word? That’s messed up.

But yeah, he was there pretty much every night like I was. So leading up to our last night, he said he wanted to do a duet. We decided on “Sweet Home Alabama.” And now that I think about it, I have no idea why. That’s not a duet at all. It’s a pretty rando song to do for a duet. Whatever.

Nickie also took a short little video of the experience, for which I am…thankful?

Turn it up.

Yeah, Steve and I kind of killed.

And I don’t know if you can see in the background of that video, but Mia’s head is kind of poking through the window there.

By this time, the bar had become 18+ so all the kids kind of had to clear out but Mia, being a HUGE Skynyrd fan, wanted to stick around for the performance. So Tony put her up on his shoulders and some of the crew watched from outside.

Nickie and I ended up sticking around for a little bit so I could get a few more songs in. Of course I sang “Purple Rain” one last time. It was the last night.

And I tried out “The Humpty Dance” for the first time ever. Which is a bit bittersweet now given that Shock G just passed away this last week. RIP man. Hope there’s lots of Hennessy on lots of shelves up there.

While we were getting our karaoke on, Owen wanted to get a milkshake from Bobby Dee’s so Jeff, being the awesome uncle he is, obliged.

And I would like to take this time to give a big shout-out to Lauree and Romaine, the staff members that ran a good deal of the karaoke throughout the trip. Seriously, these two were great. They did a great job running karaoke in general and they always made me feel so welcome there.

Have I mentioned how amazing the Beaches staff is? Because they are. Amazing.

But so yeah. That was our last night. Nickie and I headed back to the room a little earlier than our normal “leave Crickter’s” time and found the boys already there. So we packed up the rest of our stuff and got to bed.

The end.

..

…

Ha Nahhhhhh. We got a whole other day to cover. So stay tuned for Day 8.

Which is happening.

Right now.

Beaches Turks & Caicos 2021 trip: Day 8!

Day 8, you guys.

We have to go home, you guys.

So sad, you guys.

And being that it was super trendy this trip, we were once again up early on Day 8. 6AM today. For the win.

Bah, last balcony view.

In case you can’t see there, the wind was calm, the water was not choppy. It was to be a perfect day.

And we were leaving.

Mother Nature. Not the biggest fan of us.

But whatever, we still had a few hours of not being in Massachusetts.

Before breakfast, we had a little more shopping to do. We wanted to get some souvenirs for some people back home, like my mom and Nickie’s mom to say thank you for watching our Lilo girl for us while we were away.

Since we had visited the shop in the Italian Village the day before, we decided to head over to the Caribbean Village to see what they had in their shop.

And look you guys. Another rainbow!

I know, I know. Another rainbow?

Dude, are you really complaining about rainbows? Do you not have a soul?

Into the Caribbean Village shop we went.

And it was a successful adventure. We found some nice stuff to say thanks to the awesome people that we love back home.

All that wading through t-shirts and mugs and keychains made us all hungry. So it was back to the Italian Village for one last breakfast at Mario’s.

When we arrived, it was clear this place was going to miss us. On account of this sign was there waiting for us when we arrived.

And once again, while I did grab some standard buffet items, I had to hit the custom-made omelet station because, man, they make a good omelet there.

I went with my standard – mushrooms, bacon, peppers, cheese.

And as you can see on my plate above, I got a side of eggs with my eggs and grabbed some frittata. I also got some breakfast potatoes, French Toast with Pineapple Syrup, Sausage, and Breakfast Potatoes.

Last meal at Beaches. Womp to the domp.

Being that we were saying goodbye to the trip and also being that that didn’t matter because we always get alcohol at breakfast anyways, we got some Mimosas.

Mario’s is pretty good stuff. We avoided it our last trip because we were trying to do mainly non-buffets but the breakfast is pretty pretty pretty good. Seriously, they make a mean omelet there.

Plus, if you look around, you’ll see these little touches of Sesame Street here and there. As evidenced in these photos featuring our model, Mia.

How inaccurate is that Oscar representation btw? Look how happy he is, just painting away. I like my Oscar pissed off and smelling like pure garbage. I won’t stand for this “I love painting with my friends” nonsense.

Oh yeah. I am opinionated. I have an opinion on most things. Like, if I walk into your bathroom and your toilet paper is positioned in the “under” position? We aren’t friends anymore. And I will shame you on social media.

But I digress. With the end of this breakfast came a time we were dreading – having to say goodbye to Jeff and Sheila. Now, I only have one picture of this whole ordeal…

And yeah, its of Mia saying goodbye to Jeff. But trust me. We all said goodbye to both Jeff AND Sheila.

It’s probably for the best that we only have this picture since saying goodbye to the Florida Goodys is often like the end of E.T. – full of hugs, full of tears, and full of Reese’s Pieces. Well, I mean, most moments in my life have some sort of candy involved.

But really, that’s just sort of my thing.

Annnnnyways.

It was super sad to say goodbye but the good news is we see the Florida Goodys on a lot of our adventures. So I am sure we will get to hang out soon enough. At least I think so. I hope so.

Oh God, when will I see them again???

Ahem.

The blog must go on.

After breakfast, we wanted to make sure we stopped at the Italian Village Pool Bar to say goodbye another favorite bartender, Bishop.

I mean, he’s not just our favorite bartender. A lot of people love Bishop. He’s pretty awesome. Why not?

we gathered up our things and walked over to the departure lounge to claim our bags and hop on our shuttle to the airport.

And while this Departure Lounge experience wasn’t as stressful as the last time (please see here for more information. About the crazy), we still arrived with little time before we had to leave so I did not get to snap too many pictures of the place.

No worries though. There wasn’t a ton going on there anyways. In sans-COVID times, they have cookies and what not. But this time? No cookies. So I mean, what’s the point of a picture of a departure lounge without cookies?

Our shuttle got us to the airport at around 10:00AM or so. We got into line at the counter and probably waited a half hour or so before being able to move through security.

By 11:00AM, we were in the terminal but with our flight home not taking off until like 1PM, we definitely had time for….

Man, I love the Providenciales International Airport. First off, it’s such a small airport, getting around is super easy. But second off? There is this outdoor café called Gilley’s up on the second floor that overlooks the tarmac so you can have lunch and a drink outside while watching planes take off and arrive.

Look at all of us. Still having fun even though the vacation is almost over.

Oh and that drink? No clue. Let’s just say it was some sort of alcohol/fruit juice combination. I remember it being pretty good but I also remember moving onto a beer afterwards because there was literal ice on the bottle. And I mean. That’s when you know.

Oh also, we FINALLY reconnected with the Siggins. AND STARSKY!!!

No Hutch though.

Disappointing, Siggins. Super disappointing.

Still though, super cute.

And we got to see poor Suzanne with her broken hand. Gah, sucktown. Turks & Caicos? More like Turks & Break-os. On account of Suzanne broke her hand.

…

Too soon?

Sorry.

But I don’t want you to think I just drank fruity drinks and beers out on that patio. I mean, honestly, I don’t really care if you think that. I was just trying to think of a way to segue into the fact that we ordered lunch.

For my lunch, I ordered the chicken tender sandwich. I was between this sandwich and a burger but this was kind of calling out to me. It was like, “Wayne. Wayne. I am a chicken tender sandwich, Wayne. I have cheese. You want me.”

But guys. Eh. That may have been some of the driest chicken I have ever had. Like, turkey in Christmas Vacation dry. The fries were good tho.

I will say, everyone that got a burger seemed happy with their decision so if you are faced with a Chicken Tender vs. Burger decision on the patio upstairs at Providenciales International Airport, go with the burger.

I mean, I know that’s a very specific scenario but just so you know.

Like I said, our flight was at 1PM. And I don’t know. For some reason, we missed all the announcements except for the “last boarding call” announcement for the flight to Boston.

We are not good. At the departing.

But we gathered our stuff up quickly, made our way out onto the runway, and got onto our plane in time. And off we went for our 4 hour flight to Boston.

Pfft, you KNOW I took a ton of pictures of takeoff.

So um, the flight? It wasn’t….great. I mean, yes, it was a little bumpy here and there which Nickie definitely didn’t like.

But my main problem? The air vents weren’t like really working the best. This plane was HOT.

Seriously, like SO HOT. I just could not cool down at all. I ended up having to go into the bathroom and take my shirt off for a little while just to try and cool down.

Yep, I went full Nelly.

Look, I know it’s not something you really wanna picture right now but I try to keep it 100 on this blog.

100.

Which, incidentally, was the temperature on that plane.

Well at least I had this magnificent feast to take my mind off things.

It’s a good thing they included water in there.

Because those pretzels? They were making me thirsty.

Lots of Seinfeld references up in here. Blog win.

While it felt like the flight was longer than all three of the Lord of the Rings Extended Cut DVDs, it actually was only four hours. And at around 5PM, we landed at Boston Logan Airport.

These three seemed like they were fine through the flight.

After the flight landed, we had to get off the plane and get through customs and all that before heading down to baggage. The whole process was pretty painless. It took a total of, like, 40 minutes. So I mean. Not bad.

The guy with the rubber glove was surprisingly gentle.

When we got down to the baggage claim, the Falzones were already there because they’re all kinds of boujee with their Global Entry and what not.

Look at Mia. Supes boujee.

We still had a little bit of awesomeness to happen before we said our unfortunate goodbyes to everyone. We got to see the Siggins drop off Starsky with his new forever family. Ugh, so sweet.

We then gave our hugs and said our goodbyes to both the Falzones and the Siggins. It was sad to see the trip come to an end for sure. But man, we had an insane amount of fun and made so many incredible memories. #Blessed

The four of us made our way to the Rideshare stop, called up an Uber and made it home at 6:20ish. And yeah, while the end of a vacation is always sad, having a Lilo to come home to makes things a little bit easier.

Big huge GIGANTIC thanks to my mom for staying with Lilo and to my mother-in-law for coming to help when needed. It takes a village, right? To raise a Lilo?

Also, whenever my mom stays at our place with Lilo while we are away, we always come home to a full fridge and some sort of surprise. This time? Soup. As evidenced by this “so my mom” note.

In case I haven’t mentioned it before, my mom is like the best ever.

But yeah you guys. That was the trip. It’s all over.

And what a trip it was, right? I feel truly lucky to be able to take these kinds of vacations and it was especially appreciated right now. Look, I am not trying to say we struggled as much as some others over the past year. We are all healthy, Nickie and I have been working and able to do so from home. So please know I would never try to minimize anything anyone has gone through during this pretty awful time.

But still, in the life I am living right now, this trip was a nice escape. And not just to a tropical island during the colder months or an escape from staying-in-place. But an escape to a little bit of normalcy. Specifically, being able to enjoy some time just enjoying some time. With people that I love. Eating. Drinking. It was just really nice.

Thank you so much to everyone that joined us on this trip for helping to make it as awesome as it was (and for letting me sort through your pictures to compensate for the fact that I am not the best at this whole blogging thing.)

To my mom and mother-in-law for helping keep things safe at home and taking care of our Lilo – thank you so much!!!

And a special thanks to my kids, who continued to be the incredible people they are, just on a tropical island. And to my beautiful and amazing wife, Nickie, who always puts so much work into planning and organizing our (and everyone else’s) trips. My life wouldn’t be nearly as fun and bright without her.

I love you guys.

And thanks to all of you for coming along with me. I hope you enjoyed it. And I look forward to sharing with you everything coming in the future. Just so you guys know – we have a 2-week (oof) trip to Walt Disney World coming this summer (our longest trip and our first trip to WDW in the summer – yeah, I don’t know what we are thinking either) and we have a Caribbean cruise booked on the Disney Dream in early 2022.

Plus, hopefully lots of fun stuff in between. So stay tuned!

Last post – Day 6